One of David Wilmot’s Clients Really, Really Liked Him

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By Will Sommer

Businesses hoping for the services of Wilson Building mega-lobbyist David Wilmot can expect to pay for it. In just the last six months of 2013, Wilmot collected thousands of dollars each in monthly retainers from six clients, including the likes of Walmart, Anheuser-Busch, and pharmaceutical trade group PhRMA. Another client, though, has helped the District superlawyer in a more creative way: by giving him a Bentley.

Last year, Wilmot found himself embroiled in a court case over whether his income had increased enough that he should pay more in child support. That left him trying to explain how he could afford a luxury car even as his tax returns showed his income dropping. In the case of the Bentley, he explained, it was a gift from a client.

“Defendant represented that he, as an automobile aficionado, owns, or has owned, multiple automobiles, including a 1996 Mercedes, a 2004 Range Rover, and a 2004 Bentley, which was a gift from a client,” Superior Court Judge Alfred S. Irving wrote in his December 2013 findings of fact about the case, which Wilmot eventually won.

Wilmot didn’t respond to LL’s requests for comment about the Bentley’s gifter’s identity. Irving’s findings of fact also don’t reveal which of Wilmot’s clients kicked him over a Bentley.

A gift of a car that easily goes for more than $100,000 looks unusual to LL, but Wilmot’s no stranger to unorthodox relationships with his clients. A previous LL reported on how Wilmot’s bank account was used by admitted shadow campaign financier Jeff Thompson to dole out money to officials.

Photo by Darrow Montgomery

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Source: Washington News From Washington DC Paper

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